Carnival back with bigger, better ship, the Fascination

The cruise business returns Saturday and expects to help Jacksonville's economy with hospitality business

KEVIN TURNER

Carnival Cruise Lines ship Celebration sailed from Jacksonville for the last time in April, creating a lull in cruise ship traffic from the city. On Saturday, that lull ends with the arrival of a larger ship, Carnival's Fascination.

"It's an exciting day," said Tony Orsini, senior director for the Jacksonville Port Authority's cruise operations and business development. "It's the next step of the cruise business in Jacksonville."

Fascination also marks an upgrade, since it's 38 percent larger at 2,052 passengers than the Celebration's 1,486 passengers, Orsini said.

"Once you pass 2,000 passengers, you've crossed the line into the big ship category," he said. "Galveston, Tampa and New Orleans all started the same way. They solicited the cruise lines, and got a smaller ship. They kept that ship until the market demanded a bigger ship."

Lyndsay Rossman, director of corporate communications for Visit Jacksonville, said the cruise line is showing confidence in Jacksonville.

"Carnival has definitely invested in bringing in a larger ship because they know they will be able to fill the ship," she said. "That means more economic impact for the city from people coming to town. From what we've seen from the Celebration, we were over 100 percent capacity with each sailing."

The next step in growth after the Fascination is to add a second ship to the port, Orsini said. And he's in talks with other cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Norwegian Cruise Line, he said.

"I am negotiating with one of them and am very close to an agreement for one of their ships," he said, adding that he should know the outcome of those talks in six to eight weeks.

Orsini said that of the estimated 170,000 passengers who will sail on the Fascination in a year, about a third will be locals and the rest will arrive from other areas.

"We're exposing the city to hundreds of thousands of people who would have no other reason to come to Jacksonville. This a great thing to bring people to Jacksonville. It's a drive-in market with great appeal to the Southeast. People in Atlanta can book a cruise out of Jacksonville."

And since the Celebration left in April, there has been a drop in hospitality business in the area, Rossman said.

"Our Northside hotels experienced a 6 to 7 percent decrease in occupancy from a year before, directly correlated to the cruise industry," she said.

That also has an impact on area restaurants, taxis and attractions, she said.

She cited data from a study performed by Cruise Lines International Association that an average 2,000-passenger ship with 950 crew members will spend about $322,700 per trip at the home port.

Orsini said the Fascination will likely sail out of the cruise terminal at Dames Point until 2010, when Hanjin Shipping Co. Ltd. is to build a shipping terminal there. The cruise terminal is to move to Port Authority-owned land at Mayport, where Orsini said he expects to be operating by October 2010.

But first, officials are in talks with Mayport residents and businesspeople opposed to the plan.

"The community out there is very concerned and cautious about what we need to do. Once the residents see how open and straightforward we are, the impacts and the economic improvements to the area, I think we will win them over," he said.